Re: I just got a text from AT&T what is this?

I'm guessing they were more concerned with giving people incentive to switch from the unlimited plans. With the 2GB costing the same as the unlimited plan I'm guessing a lot fewer people would've switched.

True...in that case--if AT&T really only cared about the bottom line when it comes to data plans, then what they should have done was get everybody off of the unlimited plan and price 200 MB at $20 and 2 GB at $30; I wouldn't think anyone against unlimited data (for whatever reason) would or should complain about those pricing levels, seeing that under the old system all those millions and millions of 1st-3rd gen iPhone users were apparently more than happy to pay $30 (I don't remember if it was $30 as well for 1st-gen iPhone users) no matter how much or how little data they used.

A couple of problems with that. One of the reasons that AT&T gave for moving to the tiered plans was to provide a cheaper alternative to the existing unlimited plans that all iPhone users had to have. Making the 2GB plan cost the same as the existing unlimited plan would give people very little reason to move to it. And, presumably for PR reasons, they didn't wan't to just unilaterally get rid of the unlimited plans to force people into the new structure.

And for 1st gen phones it was $20/month for unlimited data, which also included 200 texts if I recall correctly.

Hence why I said they should just eliminate the unlimited plan entirely and sunset those users already on it; besides, even with unlimited plan folks being grandfathered I'd still argue for a $30/2 GB charge because then you can choose between paying $30 for unlimited but potentially throttled data, or $30 (and upwards) for a fixed amount of--but completely unthrottled--data...pick your poison. "Cheaper alternative"? Puhleeze...this is the same company that eliminated the $10/1000 text plan so that the only plan users who are looking for a text plan can choose from is one that costs more than the outgoing one--the $20/unlimited; how is that exactly a "cheaper alternative"? And please don't counter that you're at least getting unlimited texts--if it costs more than the one that is being eliminated...then how exactly would that be "cheaper" and an "alternative" to the other plan if it's the only one now available?

Unfortuantely the way the tos and fair use policy is written they could not just sunset the plan outright, they just grandfathered it, but all previous agreements are in affect. The only way they could have done this was to have written the grandfather clause to match what they did with the old no data plan required for a smarthphone - they tied it to the device that the excemption was on - as long as you had the same device you where not required to have a data plan, the minute you swapped the sim to a different device or upgraded the current device the excemption was removed and a data plan became required.

How about thrown in in they added unlimited mobile to any mobile minutes with the plan change, seriously have no idea why they did that, that one has me scratching my head also. Only thing I can see that would justify it is profit, I am all ablut profit and cost savings but even I have limits

Re: I just got a text from AT&T what is this?

A couple of problems with that. One of the reasons that AT&T gave for moving to the tiered plans was to provide a cheaper alternative to the existing unlimited plans that all iPhone users had to have. Making the 2GB plan cost the same as the existing unlimited plan would give people very little reason to move to it. And, presumably for PR reasons, they didn't wan't to just unilaterally get rid of the unlimited plans to force people into the new structure.

And for 1st gen phones it was $20/month for unlimited data, which also included 200 texts if I recall correctly.

Hence why I said they should just eliminate the unlimited plan entirely and sunset those users already on it; besides, even with unlimited plan folks being grandfathered I'd still argue for a $30/2 GB charge because then you can choose between paying $30 for unlimited but potentially throttled data, or $30 (and upwards) for a fixed amount of--but completely unthrottled--data...pick your poison. "Cheaper alternative"? Puhleeze...this is the same company that eliminated the $10/1000 text plan so that the only plan users who are looking for a text plan can choose from is one that costs more than the outgoing one--the $20/unlimited; how is that exactly a "cheaper alternative"? And please don't counter that you're at least getting unlimited texts--if it costs more than the one that is being eliminated...then how exactly would that be "cheaper" and an "alternative" to the other plan if it's the only one now available?

As I said, I'm guessing the reason they allowed people to keep the unlimited plan was a PR move. I'm sure they'd much rather people switch over to the current data plan structure, and are now giving us extra incentive to do so.

And as to "cheaper alternative", last time I checked both $15 and $25 were less than $30. For people like my wife who rarely use more than 100MB of data in a month, being able to pay $15/month instead of $30 is great. So yeah, the "new" price structure allowed for a cheaper alternative to the $30/month unlimited plan that used to be the only option.

I'm not quite sure why you brought up the texting plans considering I was only talking about the data plans. Though personally I'm glad I've still got the $5/200 messages plan in place there. Though with iMessage I might be better off just dropping that entirely. I'll have to run the numbers on how many non-iMessage texts a send per month and see if it is worth it anymore for me.

Re: I just got a text from AT&T what is this?

A couple of problems with that. One of the reasons that AT&T gave for moving to the tiered plans was to provide a cheaper alternative to the existing unlimited plans that all iPhone users had to have. Making the 2GB plan cost the same as the existing unlimited plan would give people very little reason to move to it. And, presumably for PR reasons, they didn't wan't to just unilaterally get rid of the unlimited plans to force people into the new structure.

And for 1st gen phones it was $20/month for unlimited data, which also included 200 texts if I recall correctly.

Hence why I said they should just eliminate the unlimited plan entirely and sunset those users already on it; besides, even with unlimited plan folks being grandfathered I'd still argue for a $30/2 GB charge because then you can choose between paying $30 for unlimited but potentially throttled data, or $30 (and upwards) for a fixed amount of--but completely unthrottled--data...pick your poison. "Cheaper alternative"? Puhleeze...this is the same company that eliminated the $10/1000 text plan so that the only plan users who are looking for a text plan can choose from is one that costs more than the outgoing one--the $20/unlimited; how is that exactly a "cheaper alternative"? And please don't counter that you're at least getting unlimited texts--if it costs more than the one that is being eliminated...then how exactly would that be "cheaper" and an "alternative" to the other plan if it's the only one now available?

As I said, I'm guessing the reason they allowed people to keep the unlimited plan was a PR move. I'm sure they'd much rather people switch over to the current data plan structure, and are now giving us extra incentive to do so.

And as to "cheaper alternative", last time I checked both $15 and $25 were less than $30. For people like my wife who rarely use more than 100MB of data in a month, being able to pay $15/month instead of $30 is great. So yeah, the "new" price structure allowed for a cheaper alternative to the $30/month unlimited plan that used to be the only option.

I'm not quite sure why you brought up the texting plans considering I was only talking about the data plans. Though personally I'm glad I've still got the $5/200 messages plan in place there. Though with iMessage I might be better off just dropping that entirely. I'll have to run the numbers on how many non-iMessage texts a send per month and see if it is worth it anymore for me.

No it was a money move - there are clauses in the tos that explain this.